


Most Wanted

by Bastet5



Series: The Wild Hunt [7]
Category: FBI (TV 2018), FBI: Most Wanted (TV 2020)
Genre: FBI (TV 2018) s01e18, FBI Fugitive Task Force, Gen, Late Night Conversations, Snark, Team as Family, episode novelization, mental health struggles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:29:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23343244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bastet5/pseuds/Bastet5
Summary: March 2018Being a member of the Fugitive Task Force was rewarding and disturbing simultaneously.Horrific crime scenes, horrific fugitives, some of the worst sleaze balls and scumbags to walk the face of the earth, and you had to study them, think like them, all to catch them.BUT you got the satisfaction of bringing them to justice personally.That doesn't make it any easier to sleep some nights, though.
Relationships: Clinton Skye & Original Female Character(s), Kenny Crosby & Original Female Character
Series: The Wild Hunt [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678864
Comments: 26
Kudos: 21





	1. Sunday: Day 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: If you have watched FBI or FBI Most Wanted and recognize some aspects/plot lines/characters in this story, then it means that that belongs to the genius of Dick Wolf et al. The only things that belong to me are my original characters and original story lines.

The loud blaring of a cellphone broke the silence of the quiet bedroom. It was a small bedroom, simply furnished, with a bed, bedside table, chest of drawers, and bench piled high with stuff. A lump under a pile of blankets was revealed to be a woman, when a head and then hand emerged, starting to fumble for the cellphone, which was STILL ringing LOUDLY.

“This’d better be good,” was the terse, grumpy opening.

“Good afternoon to you too, sunshine,” was Hana’s cheery rejoinder, “And we have a case, so up and at ‘em.”

The woman threw back the bedcovers, emerging fully from her cocoon, and pushing herself upright with a groan. She flipped on the lamp on the bedside table, giving some illumination to the room darkened by the wonderful invention that was blackout curtains. The shadows the lamp cast threw her mussed hair and the dark bags under her eyes into sharp relief.

“Now?? Today??” Was the somewhat disbelieving question.

“Yep,” Hana replied, “Why, you have other plans, Kat?”

“Yeaaaa, sleeping,” the other woman replied snippily. She sighed, “I’ll be out the door in 15, and I’ll be there however quickly the traffic allows.” Even on a Sunday afternoon, New York traffic could still be a horrific mess.

“You’re getting slow in …” Hana’s response was cut off by Kat’s finger mashing the disconnect button, as she muttered a few choice phrases in multiple languages.

_Bloody, bloody ****. Of all the days._

Kat, as most of her friends called her, scrubbed her hands across her face with another tired groan and then glanced at the clock. It was about 2:30 in the afternoon. She had been in bed and asleep for barely an hour. _Crime waits for no man, but this once couldn’t it have been tomorrow?_

She scrubbed her hands across her face again, pushing her hair away from her face. Then with a sigh, she rose stiffly from bed and set to work. A current member of the FBI’s Fugitive Task Force, Kat lived primarily out of a dufflebag, and packing was quick work.

Her dressing habits were as simple as her living quarters. Wool socks went on over bare, calloused feet. Then cargo pants. Then rugged boots over the socks. A dark green flannel shirt went on over a torso sprinkled with dark bruises and was buttoned with nimble fingers. A well-worn and comfy fleece vest, a washed-out shade of navy, went on over the black-watch shirt, and a leather jacket over all that would hide her Glock and badge. She stopped long enough in the bathroom to run a brush through her hair and get some water to swallow a slug of IB before repacking and restocking her duffle. Five minutes later, she was heading out the door after stopping in her kitchen to grab a cold bagel and a mug of cold tea.

* * *

Forty-five minutes almost exactly after he and Hana had to pull a few tricks out of their bag to get ahold of their incommunicado teammate, Kat appeared in the doorway that led into the team’s basement headquarters from the parking garage.

Kat—only her partner called her by her full name, Kateri—was an unremarkable looking woman. Medium-height with a lanky build and a non-descript face, the former undercover agent rarely stood out in a crowd. Today, as usual, she was wearing her usual outfit of cargo pants, hiking boots, and about three layers on top. A grey beany was pulled over her hair, and from the state of the hair under that beany and the unpleasant look that graced her face, it looked like she had just crawled out of bed.

Kenny shoved the rest of the granola bar into his mouth and waved a greeting. Her head down, Kat either did not see the greeting or choose to ignore it, making straight for her locker toward the back of the room.

He drifted over toward Hana’s desk, where the computer tech was still sitting, shooting an incredulous look at their teammate’s back.

“Touchy,” Hana muttered, having been on the receiving end of the just as grumpy phone call earlier.

“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” Kenny replied, glancing at his watch. 3:15pm. “Though why was she in bed anyway at this time of day?” He wondered aloud, keeping his voice very quiet. The room was not that big, and he was not sure how much Kat was paying attention to them.

“No idea,” Hana said, finally returning her attention to her screens, “she doesn’t look sick.”

“I can hear you, you know,” Kat called, making them both wince.

 _So much for being quiet_ , Kenny thought.

Kenny Crosby knew himself well and knew his own faults all too well. After years in the army, fighting and shooting, he could do well. Tech and communications, he could also do well. What he could not always do well was keeping a lid on his temper. He had anger management issues, and periodically Jess had to send him back to classes. Kenny, when his temper was up, simply exploded, usually in physical violence. Kat, on the other hand, when she was in a mood, never lashed out physically. Her tongue did all the work that her fists would never do, and she was unfortunately quite skilled at verbally eviscerating people.

_What got her britches in a twist?_

Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, Kenny looked at Hana, shrugged, and then went off to double check that he was fully packed before the team headed out. This was his first mission back after a lengthy, enforced injury leave. Three months earlier, a fugitive he had been chasing had tossed a fridge down a flight of stairs at him. Some fancy footwork had kept him from being smushed like a tomato underneath it, but getting out of the way had left him with a concussion, broken arm, four broken fingers, and three cracked ribs.

Lost in thought, Kenny flinched slightly when one of the locker doors slammed shut, much harder than was necessary even to get the often times temperamental doors on the old lockers to actually shut.

 _It’s going to be one of those days_ , he concluded. There were some days where Kat would reappear after a longer than usual break between hunts, acting like she was a wounded bull and almost everything anyone else did or said was a goad. The radical change from her usual good temper could make even Jess lose patience with her, and it usually took Clinton to get her to calm down and get a grip, though even he had trouble occasionally

 _I hope Clint gets here soon_. Jess was upstairs for the press conference. Clinton had disappeared to the armory upstairs before his partner arrived. Where Barnes was, Kenny didn’t know.

“So, who’s the lucky SOB this time?” Kat’s voice was as rough sounding as she looked and was dripping with sarcasm.

“Thomas Gillman, family annihilator,” Hana responded, “which you’d know if you watched the news or weren’t late.” There was the sound of papers changing hands.

All Kenny could catch of Kat’s response was “bite me,” before the door to the parking garage closed behind him. One of his spare mags was missing, and he thought it might have fallen out in his car. _Not often that I’d wish Kat would shut up. The problem is usually getting her to talk_.

* * *

Sometimes, rarely, Clinton did not know what to do with his partner. Sometimes he was torn between strangling her and hugging her. He had returned from the armory in time to catch Barnes start lecturing Kateri and Hana, who had apparently been attempting verbally going at each other. Who was originally at fault, he had no idea. Hana gave him a look after the group broke up which said, “It’s one of those days.”

Jess appeared from the elevator, the press conference declaring Gillman’s place on the Most Wanted List having finished, before Clinton could get the chance to talk to his partner and find out what the h*** was wrong this time.

Wondering what was up with his partner, Clinton finished buttoning up his greatcoat and grabbed his duffle. Everyone was packed by that time, and they all headed toward the car pack, as Jess started parceling out assignments. Gillman had over a fourteen-hour lead by that point, and they needed to get to work.

“Sheryll will join me in interviewing Mrs. Gillman’s bereaved sister,” Jess began.

Kateri fell into step beside Clinton. Her bad temper had faded into a blank mask, and now she just looked tired.

“You should try doing that hand-holding bit by yourself sometime,” was Barnes’ quick rejoinder, as she twisted back to look at Jess even while quick steps kept her moving forward.

“My hands aren’t as soft as yours,” Jess replied, making Clinton chuckle internally at his brother-in-law’s wit. Jess continued, “Clinton, Kateri, get with the ICE office in Port Chester. Tell ‘em we want to talk to Mr. Gillman’s coworkers today. Don’t let ‘em stall you. They had a bad apple. They’ve got to suck it up and cooperate.”

“I’ll sweet talk them,” Clinton replied, tossing his duffle into the backseat of the car—his rifle was already in the trunk—and moving aside to give his partner time to do the same. He missed whatever Jess said next as he noticed a flash of pain cross his partner’s face as she tossed her duffle inside and then slammed the car door shut. He filed the look away to be dealt with once they were on the road, where they could talk in private and Kateri couldn’t avoid the issue, or rather where he would not let her avoid the issue.

Kenny appeared from the direction of his jeep. _He’s looking good_. Considering Kenny’s legendary, or perhaps infamous, appetite, Clinton found it somewhat ironic that the young man had almost gotten crushed by a fridge of all things on that nearly disastrous mission three months earlier.

“Young Agent Crosby, how are those guns? All mended?” Jess seemed especially pleased to see Kenny back and looking well. The former soldier had been recruited by Jess, who had taken him under his wing, and Jess had taken the accident particularly hard.

“100 per cent, boss,” Kenny replied, striking a muscle pose and then playfully sparing with Clinton for a moment.

“Excellent. Do us a favor: next time a fugitive throws a refrigerator down a staircase. Don’t try to catch it.”

Barnes smirked, and beside Clinton, Kateri gave a muffled snort, pulling her hat lower down over her ears and then hunkering down into her coat. It was surprisingly chilly for early-March.

“Now,” Jess continued, “We all know what Mr. Gillman did to get his spot on the most wanted”—Clinton knew all too well. It was going to be a long time before he stopped seeing the photos of the children’s body from the crime scene— “Our job is not to bring justice to Mr. Gillman. Our job is to bring Mr. Gillman to justice.”

The briefing complete, everyone scattered to their cars. Port Chester was a roughly 45-minute drive from FBI HQ, less from the Gillman place, depending on the traffic.

_Better to go in person. Less stalling they can do that way. Gillman’s bank is up that way, too, from Hana’s searches. Might be worth a stop._

_Hopefully plenty of time to figure what’s up with the kid_ , _too_.

_Got to hurry though. We’re running out of daylight._

Clinton took the chance to study his partner out of the corner of his eye, as he wound his way out the parking garage following the other cars. Kateri’s silence had turned morose once she had climbed inside, and she was curled against the door, eyes closed, head on the window. There were usually two main causes for her moods: (A) she was scared, or (B) she was hurt. What had caused A or B was usually less clear. For her, anger seemed to be a defense mechanism. She lashed out to keep herself from looking weak.

From studying her, Clinton was leaning toward B. After being her partner for several years and spending a considerable amount of time off-duty with her, Clinton knew her, her quirks, and her habits quite well. He knew that her drumming her fingers on her chin meant that she was thinking and that twirling her watch around her wrist meant that she was nervous. When she slept, she almost always kept one hand tucked under her head, except when she was hurt, and now she had both arms wrapped around her abdomen like she was trying to hug herself. He was not even sure that she consciously recognized what she was doing.

Further, her mug was full of tea, not coffee, which she usually drank when she was not feeling well, and periodically one hand reached up to rub at her forehead. Inside the parking garage, her closed eyes had had a pinched look, but when they pulled outside into the sun, Kateri opened her eyes for a moment and then immediately squinted, even though it was not that bright.

* * *

“If you were almost anyone else,” Clinton’s voice broke the silence in the car that had stretched on and on since they left headquarters, “I’d think you had a hangover.”

Kateri had been expecting the questioning, but when the silence had lingered, she had zoned out, and the sudden noise made her flinch.

“Except that I know you never go drinking on Saturday nights, because you go to mass the next morning,” her partner continued, “So what the h*** has you acting like an animal with its foot in a trap??”

Clinton Skye was one of the most even-tempered, adaptable people Kateri had ever met in her 30-odd years. She could count on one hand the times she had ever seen him loose his temper since she had joined the team, and it was just as rare that he ever swore at her.

 _Not that I can blame him_. Kateri never intended to get so crabby, but the filter on her tongue evaporated in direct proportion to how badly she was feeling. The therapist she occasionally had to see called it a defense mechanism from a problematic childhood: “Being seen as weak was dangerous, blah, blah, blah.”

She sighed. _You need to apologize to Hana later, and Barnes for that matter. You’ve been abominably rude._ They all had their struggles and were used to each other’s moods, but it didn’t excuse her manners or lack thereof. _Filter or no filter, you still control your own actions._

“I got sent to DC for a couple of days,” Kateri made a face, “My help was needed with some old … stuff.” She had previously worked undercover with CID’s Organized Crime Unit with occasional details to White Collar Crimes, before transferring to the Fugitive Task Force. For her own safety and for the preservation of some still ongoing, long-term ops, she could not talk about most of the work she had done.

“Ahhhhh,” Clinton drawled, “And I’m guessing it didn’t go well?”

 _Does it ever?_ Kateri mused in the silence of her own mind. She hated these side ops she sometimes got sent on when her team was not deployed and wished whoever was approving them would stop IMMEDIATELY. “The partner I got assigned for this … job … was a bloody moron, who should never have been promoted to be a bloody field agent, and that’s all I will say.” This particular trip had been a good reminder to Kateri of why she had disliked working with a team before her transfer.

“Which means you got your a** kicked because of him?” Her partner prodded gently.

“More than once,” Kateri confirmed, a disgusted look on her face. _I was the better fighter, but they got the jump on me. If he hadn’t been a moron, I would have won easily. I hate DC_.

Clinton sighed, glancing at her quickly before returning his attention to the road, “How badly are you hurt?”

“The worst damage was to my pride. The rest of me is only bruised,” Kateri replied, shifting positions again to try to get more comfortable. The slug of IB she had taken before leaving home was finally starting to kick in, but not fast enough for her tastes.

“Including your head?”

“What? No!” _Oh, yeaaaa, you have been rubbing your forehead. Probably hence the hangover comment_. “I pulled an all-nighter, doing both our paperwork so that it would actually get done right, took the first Amtrak back—and you know I can’t sleep on those, they’re too small—just squeaked into 12:30 mass as it started, went home, and had just collapsed into bed for an hour when Hana called. Hence the ‘I didn’t get any sleep last night’ headache, not a ‘I got my bell rung’ headache.”

“You take something, kid?” Only Clinton could get away with calling her that. Coming from some people, the epithet would seem belittling, but Clinton always meant it fondly.

Kateri rolled her eyes, “Of course. Before I left to come to HQ.”

“Want me to talk to Jess? He might be able to put a stop to this.”

“I thought he had to approve these side-trips of mine?” _Or so I thought. Or maybe it’s Castille. Or both, for that matter._

“He might have to. I don’t know for sure,” her partner replied, “but if he knew what you just told me, I don’t think that approval would continue much longer.”

“Then sure, please do.”

“I’ll talk to him, or we both can talk to him once we finish this case.”

* * *

After the explanation of what had gone so wrong the last few days along with her medication finally kicking in, Clinton was relieved to see his partner’s mood improve substantially. She was still quiet and somewhat withdrawn, but not that much quieter than usual. Once her headache faded to tolerable, she had spent the rest of the drive to Port Chester going over the case files that Hana had given her before they left HQ.

The traffic, for once, cooperated, and Clinton drove faster than he usually did, and they pulled into the parking lot of the Port Chester ICE office at just past 4pm.

“Once more into the breach,” Kateri quipped, climbing from the car with a face-breaking yawn.

Clinton snorted. Dealing with ICE was almost always unpleasant. They often pulled about every delaying, stonewalling, and BS trick in the book that they could think of along with a few tricks that probably hadn’t been entered in the book yet either. There was a reason Jess had warned them not to let ICE stonewall them when they were so heavily on the clock.

The two made their way inside, Kateri drifting into her usual position off his right shoulder and half in his shadow. The usual stonewalling started as soon as they stepped in the door and identified themselves as FBI.

 _So much for inter-agency cooperation_.

His patience was in short supply, given the urgency of the situation, and he started pressing them when the wait hit the ten-minute mark. Trying to get into a verbal battle with him was not one that ICE was going to win, and with, among other tactics, some careful use of crime-scene photos and a few mentions of “family annihilator” and “dead kids,” the ICE supervisor finally decided to cooperate and promised to gather Gillman’s coworkers.

Kateri returned as Clinton headed for the exit.

“Success?” She asked, her posture and body language shifting back to the familiar from that of a put-upon, over-worked ICE lackey. With her style of dress, she fit right in with most of the office. _Ah, that’s where you disappeared off to_. Clinton had noticed her disappear mid-way through the … discussion … with the supervisor, and now she had a very self-satisfied look in the set of her jaw and the slightest hint of a smile, ticking up one side of her mouth.

“Moving in that direction,” he replied, holding the door open for her to precede him outside, “ICE will start gathering his coworkers. We’ll come back once they’re ready.”

“No time to just sit on our hands waiting on them to actually do something useful for a change,” Kateri agreed, making a face.

“What did you find out?”

“Well,” she drawled, once they were in the car and on their way. Clinton turned the car toward Gillman’s bank. _One more stop for now, and then we can rejoin the others_. “Gillman was not going to be winning any popularity contests around the office. Overheard a lot of hushed conversations while I was … wandering. Even got a glimpse of his office. All in all, he was the loner type. No friends. No pics of his kids in his office. No diplomas. No nothing. Some people found him a little …. weird. Not sure of the right word. Wonder if he just snapped.”

Kateri paused and looked around, “Where are we headed?”

“His bank,” Clinton replied, his attention mostly on the traffic, while he mulled over his partner’s information.

* * *

Gillman’s bank was more cooperative than ICE was and provided extremely helpful info in short order, and by 5pm Clinton and Kateri were on the way to rejoin the others. About an hour of daylight was left, and there was so much left to do.

 _I loathe dealing with ICE._ Kateri groused silently to herself. She had settled down against the window. The drive was not going to be long enough to take a nap, but she could at least rest a little. _Gillman sure is a piece of work. He was planning to murder his own family. I grew up seeing piece-of-work parents, but this is a step beyond. I just can’t wrap my head around it. Spousal abuse is one thing, but murdering your own kids???? How does a parent even do that? Seeing those pics, I can’t help but think of Tali. Must be worse for Clint and Jess…._

The car ride lulled her into a half-zoned out, kinda doze, and Kateri startled back to full awareness, when the car slowed towards a stop sometime later and a hand gently shook her shoulder. She looked left first to her partner, who opened his mouth to say something, but his phone started to ring before he could speak. When she looked around, where they were was immediately made clear by the ruin that was the Gillman’s house. _What’s left of it_.

 _Bloody, bloody h***. God have mercy_. She crossed herself quickly.

“We’ll be there in an hour. Thank you,” Clinton shut his door with a loud thump that reminded Kateri that she needed to be paying attention not starring wide-eyed and horrified at the ruined house.

“Where is he?” Her partner asked, and Kateri finally noticed that Sheryll was just on the other side of the car.

Barnes motioned towards what would have been the interior of the house, “Cleaning off his goody box.”

Clinton headed in that direction, and various overlapping conversations drifted back, Jess talking about cheating husbands and Kenny and Hana talking about social media and tech stuff.

Barnes bumped Kateri’s shoulder gently with her own, “Feeling better?” She kept her voice low for at least a semblance of privacy.

Kateri went red, not that it showed much with her light brown skin, and gave a sheepish smile. _Yeaa, kinda made a bitch of myself earlier._ “Yeaa, sorry about earlier. Haven’t had a good few days.”

“We all have bad days, Kat, and if you ever need to talk, you won’t have any shortage of willing ears, but we’re a team. We cannot be taking our problems out on each other.” As a former undercover agent herself, Barnes knew some of what Kateri dealt with whenever she got recalled for odd jobs for her former bosses.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Barnes let the subject rest, and the two stood companionably together, waiting on the others. There was nothing for the two women to do at the moment, and too many people inside the ruined house would just get in the way or cause an accident. The wind changed, and Kateri shivered, retucking her scarf around her neck and burying her hands in her pockets. _I should have grabbed a warmer coat. There wasn’t snow in DC, and I wasn’t awake enough to think about it earlier. Oh, well._

“The ICE office in Port Chester will have …,” Kateri tuned back into what was going on around her when she heard her partner’s voice, realized that she already knew what he was telling Jess, and promptly zoned out again, resting on her feet, one hip perched on the car hood.

_I need coffee. If we have to pull an all-nighter trying to catch this creep, I’m going to die._

_One all-nighter I can do, but two … I’ll die, even if I had Kenny and Hana’s supply of coffee and sugar_.

“Nothing impetuous about our boy,” Jess was saying.

Barnes started in the direction of the house, and Kateri decided to follow. One of the local PD people asked a question, and the boss switched into lecture mode, describing the “flavors” of family annihilators. _Ick_. She had heard his descriptions before and tuned him out. _I’ve got and will have enough nightmares as it is from this case. Don’t need to hear that again_.

Being a member of the Fugitive Task Force was rewarding and disturbing simultaneously. Horrific crime scenes, horrific fugitives, they were sometimes worse than what Kateri had seen with her time with Organized Crime and made a number of her jobs with White Collar look like a cake walk. At least there was less undercover bits to the work. _And when I have to get up close and personal with sleazeballs and scumbags, you don’t have to act like you’re not a Feebie, and the boys are around if I need backup._ There was, however, a good feeling about being able to bring such low lifes to justice, having a bigger hand in it and seeing it done.

The team wrapped up their work at the Gillman place, and with one extra box of miscellaneous stuff courtesy of the boss’s rummaging through the ruins, Clinton, Kateri, and Jess in their two cars headed back toward Port Chester to interview the coworkers. This time, she did decide to avail herself of a 30-minute catnap, after filing away the reminder to apologize to Hana for being a bitch earlier once there was a bit of privacy.

Mr. Gillman had a number of coworkers at the ICE office that he had a decent amount of contact with, and the agents had to talk with them all. Kateri kept one eye on her watch, as the minutes dragged on and on. The light was fading fast outside and then it completely faded as they talked to coworker after coworker who might know something, anything to help them catch this SOB.

 _If we get any decent leads, we’re going to be chasing them in the dark, unless we wait until tomorrow and give Gillman an even bigger lead_.

Finally, on the last coworker, Agent Lane Cantrell, there finally looked to be some helpful information, besides variations on what Kateri had already heard earlier and had already informed the boss about.

“I knew Tommy had problems at home, but I never imagined it would come to this,” Agent Cantrell said, shaking his head sadly. He sighed heavily, “He cheated on his wife with a woman at a massage parlor”— _ick_ —“in White Plains. He was worried his wife would find out.”

Jess, Clinton, and Kateri all exchanged looks.

“So, he was afraid of losing his family?” Jess asked the question that was on all their minds.

 _If he didn’t want to lose his family—understandably—then why in all the bloody blue blazes did he kill them?_ Kateri mused, drumming her fingers on her chin. Her mental voice was somewhat saltier than her tongue. _That doesn’t make one bloody lick of sense._

“He was regretful,” Cantrell confirmed, with accompanying hand gestures, “He wanted to renew his commitment to his marriage.” _Are we talking about the same person???_

Clinton passed over the small notebook that he kept in his jacket pocket and that he had been making a few notes on as Cantrell spoke, “Can you write down the name of that massage parlor?”

Cantrell dropped his key ring on the desk and moved to do so. Kateri blew a strand of hair out of her face and then tried to disguise rubbing her eyes by using her hands to adjust her hair. _That’s another thing you forgot this afternoon: a hair band or bobby-pins_.

“You a hunter?” Jess suddenly asked, his question, to Kateri, seemingly coming out of left-field.

Kateri starred at Jess for a moment and then noticed that his gaze was fixed on the desk, on Cantrell’s key ring more specifically. She shifted her gaze, studied the key ring for herself, and finally noticed what had drawn Jess’ attention: a sight-wrench.

“Yes, sir. I hunt,” Cantrell replied, straightening up and returning Clinton’s notebook.

“Is Tommy a hunter?”

 _Now we’re getting somewhere_. Kateri could see the idea Jess was chasing down. Hunters often had favorite hunting spots. If Tommy was a hunter and had one, he could be hiding out there.

“A good one,” the ICE agent confirmed, “And he let you know it”— _great, a stuck-up creep_ —"He likes to hunt alone. Could spend days alone.”

“Does he have a favorite spot?” Jess asked.

“Yeaaa, but he didn’t tell me where.”

“Huh,” Jess didn’t miss a beat or seem concerned, “You said he liked to show off. I’m sure he sent you some photos of his hunts.”

“Sure.” Cantrell grabbed his phone, unlocked it, and started flipping through pages.

Kateri took a couple steps forward from where she had been lurking at the back of the room, so she could get a better look at whatever photo(s) Cantrell was thinking of and looking for. Clinton glanced over at her as she appeared off his shoulder, checking if she needed something or had something she wanted to add. Kateri shook her head.

Cantrell handed over his phone, and the three FBI agents peered at it. It was a decent photo, but one that made Kateri wonder how Gillman had taken it. The photo showed Gillman posing in the center in camo and orange, a rifle in one hand. A large deer lay dead in front of him, only the head lying on a downed log visible. Behind them were woods and various other downed trees.

Clinton seemed to have had a eureka moment and took the phone from Jess and zoomed in on one corner of the photo, “Survey marker.”

_Got you!_

Unfortunately, the news was not as good as it sounded. The light had faded, and running around the woods in the dark after a dangerous fugitive who was willingly even to slaughter his own children was extremely dangerous. It was going to take time to find Gillman’s spot, gather the troops, get there, and hopefully catch Gillman, but it all couldn’t be done that day.

Jess got the ball rolling, while the three waited for the others to arrive, and then the whole team gathered at a small 24-hour diner in Post Chester about 8:30pm for some very late supper.

Kateri was almost too tired to eat, crashing after a long day fueled only by an hour of sleep, 3 cups of tea/coffee, a bagel, and two granola bars. Her partner had to prod her several times to get her to finish eating the hamburger she had chosen.

By 11pm, the team had done about all the work that could be done for day. Since the team’s bus was currently in the shop and they needed to get moving too quickly in the morning for a hotel room, the team settled down in their cars for a short night’s rest.


	2. Monday: Day 2

The buzzing of his phone against his leg woke Clinton about 5:30am. He was a light sleeper as it was, and the car was not exactly the most comfortable place to sleep. The first wisps of dawn had just started to illuminate the eastern sky, as he sat up, pushed his coat aside, and pulled his phone from his pocket, trying to be quiet and shield the glow of the screen. In the reclined passenger seat, his partner was curled up asleep facing him, still dead to the world.

_She was half-dead last night_. He had not seen her that exhausted in a long time.

The buzzing of his phone was a text from Jess, short, succinct, and to the point:

Rangers found Gillman’s spot in Hardwick Township. Exact coordinates forthcoming. Local SWAT gathering. Roll out ASAP.

From where he was parked, Clinton couldn’t see the other’s cars but imagined everyone was starting to rouse. _6 and a half hours of sleep is better than nothing_. The team was used to long days and short nights. He only hoped it was enough to keep his partner going.

Clinton texted back an acknowledgement and slipped his phone back into his pocket, before leaning over to shake Kateri’s shoulder. It took two tries before she finally opened her eyes and stared, eyes half-lidded, back at him in the darkness for a long moment. Finally, she pushed herself up on one elbow, rubbing her eyes with her other hand,

“News?”

“Jess just texted me. Rangers found Gillman’s hunting spot. We need to get moving as soon as possible.”

Kateri gave herself a shake, as if she were trying to dislodge mental cobwebs, “Where?” She pushed her coat aside and started fumbling around in the cup holder for her watch.

“Hardwick Township.”

“New Jersey… Ugh, that’s a 2-hour drive there and back.”

“How soon can you be ready to leave?” Clinton asked.

“Give me 10 minutes,” Kateri replied, “Just let me use the bathroom and see if the cops mind me snitching some coffee.” They had all parked for the night in the parking lost of the local PD office.

Within 15 minutes, everyone had regathered at the cars, several with cups of coffee. Jess distributed the address of where they were headed, and then they were on their way.

Hardwick Township was, as Kateri had said, in New Jersey, a little town in the middle of nowhere almost all the way to Delaware. It was a long two hour drive, when everyone knew they were on the clock and every hour delay gave Gilman a longer lead, but by the time the Fugitive Task Force reached the town, the sun had risen, and the coffee was kicking in, and everyone, Clinton included, was feeling more awake.

The team stopped in the town long enough to coordinate with the local state police, those who were not sitting on the site, and get kitted up. They parked some distance from Gillman’s hunting spot. Their fugitive had already proven himself to be someone they did not want to underestimate, and they did not want the noise of the cars to warn him of their coming.

Clinton was following Jess as they hiked in, Kateri a few steps behind, her steps careful and sure. He glanced occasionally back to check on her anyway. Despite what her clothing and choice of footwear might indicate, she was not the most comfortable traipsing around or tracking in the woods. A childhood mostly spent in the Bronx and a career in the cities had never given her much of an opportunity to learn. After she had joined the team, Clinton had rectified that deficiency in her training as quickly as possible in their off days between hunts. She would never be as good as he was, he judged, but there was not a decent chance anymore that she would get lost, put her foot in a hole (or a trap), touch something she shouldn’t, etc.

Clinton crouched behind the shelter of a large, fallen tree, Kateri on his left, Jess and the PD leader on his right. Gillman’s encampment was about 50 yards deeper into the woods. No movement was visible. No sound of someone within. There was plenty of stuff visible: chair, tent, cooler, a car (its open trunk also full of stuff), and a dog lying in the bumper’s shade.

“Rangers found it two hours ago. Suspect’s probably out huntin’,” an officer from the local PD was saying.

Clinton scanned the encampment again, but then suddenly Kateri stiffened at his side, a look of startled realization on her face. He glanced at her quickly. _What are you seeing that I am not_? Her attention was on Jess, but her grip was loose on her gun. _Not immediate danger, then_. She was just opening her mouth to speak, when Jess himself rose and moved out from behind the protection of the tree.

“I’m callin’ it,” he yelled, “Gillman’s not coming back. The dog is starving, chewing through its leash.” He moved toward the encampment.

Clinton followed, Kateri scrambling down the hill beside him. “The dog, did you see it, too?” He asked.

* * *

“Yeaaa,” Kateri drawled in response to her partner’s question. She had always had an eye for small details. Being the little kid in school had necessitated being watchful and being able to recognize small clues for when it might be necessary to start running the other direction or go find the handful of big kids whom she could hide behind.

_Now comes one of my least favorite part of this job: searching through suspect’s cars_. Searching cars often proved to be some combination of horrifying, disgusting, and nauseating and did not always offer any clues in return. In her years as an agent, Kateri had seen almost everything: dirty laundry, dead bodies, congealed/moldy food, abandoned children’s toys, X-rated materials, etc., etc.

With a shared look of disgust, Kenny took one side of the car, and Kateri the other. At the trunk, Jess crouched down beside the dog, “Probably hasn’t been fed in 3 days.”

The interior of the car revealed the usual: guns, including a long rifle in the front seat; dirty laundry; canned food, dog and human; family pictures; etc. No notebooks, maps, manifestos, nothing that would indicate why Gilman did what he did or where he might be going next. _No clue of why he went bananas_.

“Sir, I don’t think we’ve fully…” One of the cops broke in.

Kateri rolled her eyes. Sometimes having to work with local cops was exasperating.

“Gilman staged this to pin us down here, waiting for him,” Jess replied, shooting the cop down.

_Our resident family annihilator has already proven that we cannot underestimate him._

“Maybe he got injured hunting.” The cop apparently didn’t know when to quit.

This time it was Kenny who rolled his eyes, as he dusted off his hands and stepped back from the car.

_He’s a smart criminal with no limits on how far he’s willing to go, and that makes him very deadly and very dangerous. He hasn’t done anything without a plan._

_And really, moron, did you even look around the scene? His rifle is here._

“He went hunting without his rifle?” Clinton asked, his tone thick with sarcasm, as he pulled the rifle from the car, his words echoing his partner’s thoughts.

“There are caves nearby. Maybe he’s hiding there.”

_Do you know nothing about this case or this suspect???????_

Even Jess seemed to be losing patience, judging by his tone of voice. “Go search those caves. That’s exactly what Gilman wants: us wasting our resources. He’s long gone. He’s looking for another mode of transport,” he paused, looking upward at the screech of a passing raptor flying overhead, “Or maybe he’ll grow wings.”

Jess turned back toward the hills, starting to hike back up toward where the cars were waiting, “Well played, Tommy.”

Kateri and the others followed.

* * *

Slowed down by heavy traffic, it was early afternoon by the time the team made it back to New York City. They chased leads the rest of the afternoon and well, well into the evening. Then, finally late in the evening, they stopped at another diner for some food. For a few minutes, they got to think about something besides work and actually eat some decent food that did not come out of a vending machine or a gas station.

Sitting at the counter next to her partner and Barnes and sipping another cup of coffee, Kateri was simply glad to not feel as half-dead as she had the previous evening. _How many cups have you had today?_ She had lost count. She was also glad to be off her feet for a little bit after traipsing around all day.

The TV set on the wall was tuned to a local news station and was playing a report on Gillman and the manhunt for him. It was past 10pm.

Jess reappeared from where he had been off staring a wall, cogitating for most of dinner. Kateri swiveled around, as the others did the same.

“Hot water, boss,” Kenny said, looking up from his half-finished plate of food and pushing the to-go cup in Jess’ direction.

“Thank you.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“While I was starring at the wall back there, …” Jess began, grabbing the honey container and beginning to squeeze copious amounts into his cup of tea. Kateri watched with wide eyes as he kept squeezing … and squeezing … and squeezing. She had seen him perform the same ritual over and over, multiple times per hunt for the last several years, but it still never ceased to amaze her how sweet he liked his tea.

_My teeth hurt. I can almost feel them developing cavities just watching. I like sweets, but …. ugh_.

“… I was thinking about Gillman. He needs to put miles on the odometer. He knows we’ve got everything covered. He would have anticipated having to change his appearance and use a fake ID. Being a deportation office arresting undocumented immigrants, he would have had his pick of all the fake IDs they had. Right?”

“Mm-hmm,” agreed Kenny, his eyes fixed on the honey container. Kateri barely repressed a snicker at the look on his face.

“Are we going back to Port Chester then?” Kateri asked.

Jess nodded, “You, Clinton, Crosby, and Hana. Sheryll and me, we’re going to a massage parlor.”

* * *

_It feels like I’ve spent most of yesterday and today in the car_. Hana thought to herself, as the team left the diner and started dispersing to their cars. _Thank goodness for coffee_.

Half-way to their car, Kat broke off from her partner and headed toward Hana and Kenny, who were making for ‘his’ jeep.

The older woman had her hands wrapped around her own cup of coffee and looked much more with it than she had at their last diner-dinner. “Mind if I ride with you this time, Hana?”

_That’s new._ Hana had nothing against Kat when she was not in one of her moods, which was thankfully only on rare occasions, but they were vastly different people, personality wise and interest wise. On hunts, Kat, also, was rarely to be parted from her own partner’s side, occasionally claiming that she was jinxed otherwise, and Hana, if not in the bus, spent most of her time with Kenny.

_Whatever bee was in her bonnet yesterday seems to have left_. Hana glanced at Kenny, who gave an “I don’t care” shrug. “Sure,” Hana replied, “Have at it.”

Knowing Hana’s predilections toward fast driving, Kenny tossed over his keys with an admonition not to break his baby and sauntered off to join their sniper.

“What brought this change of scenery on?” Hana asked, when they were on the road north again.

“Apologies,” Kat replied, her tone sheepish, “We’ve all been hither and thither since this thing started, and I never got the chance to apologize for being a bitch yesterday. I know you were trying to help...”

_Kenny and the boss have the fiercest temper when roused, but her tongue is worse than her bite_.

“You were just having a bad day?” Hana added, glancing over at her teammate for a split-second.

Kat winced, “Yeaa. Not that’s an excuse. I’m sorry. Your call woke me up, and I’d just collapsed into bed an hour earlier. I’d been out of town for work and pulled an all-nighter.”

_By ‘work,’ you mean your mysterious side-jobs for your old bosses, which you can’t talk about_.

“I understand. Lack of sleep does not make for the most pleasant of individuals, especially after your assorted odd-jobs. You’ve had to deal with me on low sleep and no coffee before, anyway. So apology accepted.”


	3. Tuesday: Day 3

As Jess had said back at the diner, Gilman, being an ICE agent, “would have had his pick of all the fake IDs they had,” which meant that the four agents started with ICE. Once they reached Port Chester, Kateri rejoined Clinton, and the two went to put pressure on ICE, while Kenny rejoined Hana to work their own magic tech-wise in the meantime.

“I think they’re as happy to see us as we are them,” Kateri whispered to her partner, as the two sat waiting in a conference room.

Clinton gave a muffled snort, half-hiding his smirk behind his coffee cup, “I’d agree with that.”

The two agents had been waiting for nearly an hour. Lackey after lackey, each one slightly higher up the food chain than the last, had been giving them the run-around ever since they arrived, and both were running out of patience.

“I’m going to the men’s room. I’ll be back in a few.”

Kateri nodded as her partner rose, “Don’t leave me alone too long to deal with these knuckleheads.”

As luck would have it, a mid-level supervisor, looking surprisingly put together considering it was almost 1am _in the bloody morning_ , appeared less than a minute after Clinton had left. Kateri groaned internally. _Oh, for heaven’s sake._

She was just as happy to leave dealing with ICE to her partner. During her three or so years with the Fugitive Task Force, Kateri had been forced to deal with too many agents, supervisors, cops, etc. with various alphabet soup agencies, task forces, and local PDs who were not happy to deal with the FBI and took great pleasure in the team the runaround. Things got even more complicated when/if racism or misogynism (or, worse, both) got added as cherries on the cake of inter-agency non-cooperation. ICE, especially, had a talent for making themselves odious.

_Insert eyeroll_.

Kateri made a show of examining her watch closely as the man entered. “Good. Maybe we can finally get some things accomplished now.” She was not feeling in a mood to be nice, not at 1am when they had been waiting and waiting and waiting.

The man bristled, not even giving his own name, “The situation with Agent Gilman is quite regrettable, but this office has many ongoing investigations. We do not have time to be pandering to your every request in such short order.”

“Regrettable,” Kateri drawled, giving the word several excess syllables, “Regrettable. Your Agent Gilman murdered his two children, slit their throats like animals while they lay in their beds, and then he slit his wife’s throat and put a bullet in her head for good measure. Don’t even get me started on the collateral damage. Do you know what a slit throat looks like, smells like, sounds like? Because I do, so don’t stand there and call this regrettable.”

The suit went white and then red, “We have already been going to great lengths to cooperate with the FBI since the accident. We disrupted the ongoing vital work of this office so that you and your partner could talk to Agent Gilman’s coworkers yesterday.”

“Yes, after multiple runarounds and delays, you finally did do that. And now we need more. The fugitive’s body count is at SIX, SIX innocent lives,” Kateri replied, stressing the number and fighting to keep her voice calm— _Losing your temper now won’t make this go any faster as much as strangling this moron with his own tie would be so well-deserved_ —“and I think we both can agree that we do not want that body count to go any higher.”

Spluttering, but then a reluctant nod.

“Good. Thank you. Now we’re on the same page. Sooooooo, from our work today, we know that Gilman needs to put as much distance as he can between us and him, but he also knows we’re after him. Thus, we suspect that he is using fake IDs, which he likely stole from this office.”

More spluttering and then incensed outrage at the insult to the security of ICE’s evidence locker.

Kateri tamped down on her rising temper and somehow managed to keep a semblance of a semi-pleasant look on her face, as she waited for the spluttering, sputtering, and nonsense to stop long enough for her to get another word in edgewise.

The spluttering was winding to a close when she noticed that her partner had returned and was standing in the doorway behind Agent Useless Suit Dude watching with a smirk on his face. She gave him a look that was half-pleading, half-glaring: “Don’t leave me alone to deal with this.” Clinton’s smirk grew wider and made a motion with one hand that was probably to be interpreted, “Keep going. You’re doing fine.”

_Oh, come onnnn._

The spluttering and flow of useless words flowing out of the ICE agent’s mouth finally ceased.

“Now,” Kateri begin again, “Are you going to let my partner and I see your collection of fake IDs to see if any are missing, or do I need to arrest you for obstruction of justice?”

More spluttering, and the suit started to go purple. _I thought that only happened in cartoons_.

“If Gilman’s body count increases further,” Kateri added in a very pointed tone, as she slowly stood, “I could probably find some additional charges to add to that.”

_Come on, come on. I have better things to do with my time than argue with you. Be reasonable and helpful for once in your bloody life._

Agent Useless Suit Dude finally caved at that and, with a limited amount of grumbling, led the two FBI agents toward the evidence room. _It’s a bloody miracle_.

“Good going, kid,” Clinton whispered.

Kateri gave a half-smile, half-smirk in return.

The local ICE office’s vaunted security system was much less impressive than the suit they had gotten saddled with had made it out to be. Neither Kateri nor Clinton was in any way surprised that, after the inventory list had been consulted and compared to the actual contents of the inventory room, that SIX phony IDs were found to be missing: two Jersey, two New York, and two Connecticut. Names on those phony IDs in hand, written down on Clinton’s notebook, the two happily departed the ICE office and returned to the cars.

“That took a while,” Kenny commented, looking up from his computer, as Kateri and Clinton climbed into the backseat of the jeep, “Find anything?”

“The names on the 6 phony IDs that Gilman filched,” Clinton replied, passing up his notebook, “Get those names out.”

“Color none of us surprised,” Kateri muttered, “ICE was not feeling in a helpful, sharing mood.”

“Are they ever?” Asked Hana.

“We got saddled with a mid-level supervisor. Kateri threatened to arrest him for obstruction if he didn’t cooperate,” Clinton added. He seemed to find the situation quite amusing.

“You go, girl!” Kenny crowed, twisting around for a high-five.

About an hour after Hana had sent the names out to every agency and PD department in the tri-state area, a hit came back from the state police: a murder in Poughkeepsie, where the victim—not Gilman—had been found with one of the phony IDs in his pocket. Poughkeepsie was over an hour north of Port Chester, and the four made tracks north, Kateri letting Sheryll know the news.

About 5am, the four of them arrived at the crime scene, a used car park, already swarming with cops. The victim was the owner of the dealership, felled by some sort of tool that had been stabbed through his left eye into his brain. Several different bodily-fluids had leaked from the grisly wound, staining his face and the ground beneath his head.

Kateri felt her stomach lurch violently as she saw the body and, for a moment, thought she might be sick. Crime scenes and dead bodies aplenty she had dealt with during her career, but this was new, and …. _Ugh, double ugh._ Blood and guts she could handle, but brains, nuh-uh.

Her own expertise was not needed at the moment, so she retreated to the safety of the cars where she did not have to look at the body. Bending over and placing her hands on her knees, she took several deep breaths willing her stomach to stop doing loop-de-loops.

“You okay?” Kenny asked, coming over, “You’re looking a little green.”

“I don’t do brains,” she replied, “Never could.”

“It’s rather gnarly,” Kenny agreed, rubbing her back gently, “There’s some water in the jeep if you need some.”

“Thanks. I’ll be okay. I just need a minute.”

Jess and Sheryll pulled up a few minutes later just as Kateri was finally regaining control of her stomach. As the informal briefing started, Kateri rejoined the group gathered around the body but purposefully kept one of her teammates between her and the body.

And finally there was progress on the hunt.

“Seven and a half hours. We’re cutting into his lead,” Jess declared

_We’re catchin’ up_.


	4. Wednesday: Day 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last two chapters will be much longer.

Unfortunately, the gaining lead did not translate to ease in figuring out where Gilman was going next. It was not until the evening of the fourth day, over a day and a half later, that the team learned what the next location in the hunt for Gilman was going to be: Buffalo. Poughkeepsie and Buffalo were almost on the opposite sides of New York State, a 5.5-hour drive apart. The team needed to move quickly, which meant it had to use the jet, unfortunately for Kateri.

Kateri was twisting her watch around and around and around and around her wrist, as the team pulled onto the grounds of the Hudson Valley Airport where the jet had just recently landed.

“It’ll be a short flight,” Clinton said, “Less than an hour from take-off to landing.”

While she really, truly appreciated that her partner was trying to make her feel better, his words were not helping a lot. Kateri was claustrophobic. She could ride in small cars or even in moving elevators without a problem because she knew that, in almost every case, she could get out quite quickly if she needed to. (The exceptions, she tried to not think about too often.) Trains and planes, however, were somewhat more problematic because, while most were much bigger than a small car, the seating arrangements often made the spaces seem smaller and the options for debarking were … much, much less limited.

Kateri could do it, take planes or trains, that is. She just really did not like it, but having something to distract her or having someone to travel with it made it easier.

“I know,” she replied with a sigh after a minute, “We’ve gotta do what we’ve gotta do. I’ll just be glad to get it over with.”

Kateri and Clinton were the last to board the jet, a small Learjet that the Fugitive Task Force teams used from time to time. She balked for a second at the bottom of the stairs, but only for a second, and then she hurried up and ducked into the plane. _Best just to get it over with_. She told herself. _Plenty of work to do for distraction_.

The flight did pass quickly to her relief, and soon enough the team was landing in Buffalo.

“Let’s move, guys,” said Jess, as the team finished gathering their gear and debarking.

Kateri ended up being the last off the plane. Her partner was waiting at the bottom of steps, and she fell into step beside him. An agent from the Buffalo Field Office had been waiting for them and started filling the team in on the latest intel.

“License plate reader picked up the car on the Skyway. Buffalo PD located it an hour ago in Kenmore. I have a team sitting on it.”

Transportation was waiting for them all, and Kateri piled into the back of the lead SUV, which the Buffalo agent was driving, between Barnes and her partner. With all their duffels and Clintons’ rifle case, the backseat was rather crowded. _I’m glad we all like each other. And that this’s a relatively short drive_. It was only about 20 minutes to their target location in Kenmore.

The target location wa sa slightly-unsavory, local strip-mall. Gilman’s car, which he had taken from the used car lot after killing the dealer, was parked in the parking lot.

“We did a walk-by,” the agent said, when the cars were parked, close enough to see Gilman’s car but far enough to not be immediately obvious, “There’s a map in the backseat. It doesn’t look like Gilman abandoned the vehicle. We checked the restaurants here, and every restaurant, bar, and motel in both directions.”

“Well, not for the fine dining,” Barnes inserted, her tone dripping with sarcasm, glancing over at Kateri and Clinton, “why is he in Buffalo?”

“Only one reason,” the Buffalo agent replied, “He’s getting ready to cross into Canada.”

Kateri gave a disbelieving snort. “Here? Not unless he’s not anywhere near as smart as he’s been acting the last several days.”

“There are easier places than Buffalo to sneak across the border,” Clinton added dryly, agreeing with his partner.

_Gilman would be a moron to try to cross here. Big city, lots of traffic, major crossing with guards._

_He knows we’re looking for him. He knows his picture is out. He needs a quiet crossing, if that’s the angle he’s playing._

“And as an ICE agent, Gilman should know the quiet crossings,” Kateri tag-teamed off of him.

Their driver made a face, obviously unhappy about getting his idea shot down.

Jess shifted in his seat. “Any massage parlors along this strip?” He asked.

“There’s a couple … uh, a few blocks from here.”

 _Ah, I see where your mind’s goin’, boss. Gilman’s shown himself to have a habit, and those kinda habits are hard to shake. That might be his undoing here._ During her time doing undercover work, she’d seen other perps caught because of such habits.

Jess twisted in his seat to look back at them. His words echoed Kateri’s internal musings. “He developed a bad habit. Tried to shake it, but he couldn’t.”

“Let’s do it,” said Barnes.

“Clinton, Kateri, take Crosby and Hana. Barnes and I will head inside.”

* * *

The whole raid went sideways, and the result was one beaten massage parlor girl and one fugitive in the wind. The whole team ended back up in the same car park where they had started, Clinton and Kenny going over Gilman’s car with a fine-tooth comb. There wasn’t enough elbow room for her to help so Kateri hung back, staying out of the way.

Jess was not in a good mood. Kateri could almost see the bad vibes rolling off of him in waves. Then the Buffalo agent— _what was his name again??_ —made the mistake of opening his mouth again.

“Now he’ll head for Canada just like he planned.”

_Dude, not a good time for further speculation!!_

“Yeaaa, well if that’s his plan, why did our most wanted fugitive risk a rub-down here with a girl that he had to beat half to death because she recognized him, instead of waiting until he got to Canada to a nice Canadian massage parlor with nice Canadian girls who haven’t seen his face plastered all over their video screens?” The boss was really, really not in a good mood.

Luckily for the sake of the other agent’s skin, Barnes took the chance to intervene and pull the boss away before he could do more than just verbally fillet the unlucky agent.

Kateri could only the catch the very end of their hissed confab, Jess saying, “He’s been here two days. Why??”

 _Good question. If I were a fugitive, I’d want to keep moving_.

“Boss,” Kenny’s voice jolted her from her thoughts, “Check it out.”

The team regathered around Gilman’s car. Kateri rubbed her gloved fingers together. It was extremely late in the day, though not quite into the next morning yet, and it was cold, mostly because of the wind. _I could go for some coffee right now. Just to hold!_

“He killed the Nav and GPS,” Kenny reported, “So there’s no record of where he’s been...”

“Or who he met in Buffalo,” Jess finished.

“There was no one in the Buffalo area in his personal contacts,” Barnes added.

Kateri looked away from the car, when her partner started to turn, scanning the area. _Are you seeing something we haven’t?_ She glanced quickly around, too, looking for obvious threats. Clinton, noticing her movements, shook his head, indicating that there wasn’t a problem after all.

“Maybe it’s someone he came across in an ICE investigation,” Jess said pulling away from the window and leaning one arm on the side-mirror, “We need to get back into their database.”

Clinton grimaced, “After we caught them with their thumbs up the b***s about the missing IDs, that’s going to be a problem.”

Kateri snorted agreement, “Uh, yeaaaa. I had to lean on them pretty hard just to get them to cough up that much help.” _Should I add I threatened to arrest one of them?_

“Big problem,” Kenny agreed, already knowing the full story of what had went down.

Jess stared at them for a long moment, nodded, and then went off to make a phone call.


	5. Thursday: Day 5

Jess’ phone-call had been to a buddy of his back at HQ in New York, and by the time another short night had passed with lots of work chasing leads and only a few hours of sleep, the buddy delivered with a whole passel full of critical intel.

Gilman had searched a dozen national databases for information on a man named Michael Venutti, a local Buffalo business man. He ran some sort of home renovation business, and his shop/office/place looked like a cross between an office and an actual house, the way the interior was decorated. Venutti himself was a well-put together man in a fancy suit with a confident polished mean.

“I don’t think I have ever met an actual FBI agent before,” was one of the first things out of his mouth, after Kateri, Clinton, Barnes, and Jess appeared at his work mid-morning about as soon as they could expect him to be in the office.

 _Five days and no end in sight yet to this hunt_ , Kateri mused to herself, as Venutti led the four agents to his office.

“You don’t want to make it a habit,” replied Jess.

 _Is getting a visit from your friendly neighborhood FBI agent ever a good thing_?

“So, what’s this about?” Mr. Venutti asked.

His office was in a wide-open area adjacent to a fancy kitchen display area with so many types of wood paneling and marble countertops and the like it was almost astonishing. The ever practical Kateri found the idea of spending a huge amount of money renovating her kitchen to be laughably ridiculous. _Who cares what my kitchen looks like? I’m using it to cook, not to hold dinner parties in. As long it is functional, that’s good enough for me._

“Mr. Venutti, have you ever met or talked to this man?” Barnes asked, as Jess extended a tablet with Gilman’s mug on it, “His name is Thomas Gilman. Maybe you know him as Oscar Perez?”

Kateri perched on a nearby table next to her partner and took the chance to study Venutti while the others talked. Jess handed over the tablet, and Venutti studied it for only a couple of seconds, before handing the tablet back with a shake of his head, “No, I don’t know him.”

“Mr. Gilman is an Immigrations and Customs Officer. He’s suspected of killing his wife and two children,” Barnes added.

“That’s why I don’t follow the news: too depressing,” was Mr. Venutti’s only reply to that revelation, as he glanced down and then all around the room.

Now Kateri was a little suspicious. Venutti’s body language and mannerisms were just plain off. His casualness seemed somewhat forced, and he had no reaction to the revelation that Gilman had murdered his own family, which was extremely atypical.

Venutti took a seat, “So what does this have to do with me?”

_Forcing yourself not to react can be just as big a tell as reacting sometimes._

“Gilman searched a dozen national databases for information about YOU,” Clinton inserted, emphasis on the last word.

“Why would he be interested in me?” Venutti almost pulled off the genuinely puzzled act.

_That’s what we want to know!_

“Maybe you hired undocumented workers and brought them into the country?” Barnes proposed.

“No, no way,” Venutti countered, “I run a straight business.”

While this had been going on, Jess had taken to starring at one of the bookcases behind Venutti’s desk. It looked like it was a photo that had caught his interest, but of what Kateri couldn’t see. She was a little too far away.

“You can’t think of any reason why Gilman has you in his radar?” Clinton pressed.

“No,” Venutti shook his head, starting to rise, “Look, I’ve got a lot of work to do, so…”

Now Jess made his final play. “That’s a nice-looking family you’ve got there,” _so that’s what the pic was of_ , “Mind taking one last look at Gilman. He might have had dark hair or glasses…” Jess finish fiddling with the tablet and then held it up in front of Venutti.

The angle was wrong for Kateri, on Clinton’s left, to see what was on the screen, but by Venutti’s wince, she could guess, even before Jess ‘apologized’ for ‘accidently’ showing a picture of Gilman’s wife. Kateri had looked over every crime scene photo and every shred of info just like all the team members, and _I’m not going to forget those photos for a long time, especially the ones of the kids. Those poor things._ She almost wanted to rub her own throat on reflex. _But Venutti … the only reason I didn’t puke was because I’ve seen worse before. He only winced, and now he’s acting all nervous._ Same song, second verse with the pictures of the kids. This time Venutti’s reaction was a little stronger, though. _Still suspicious_.

“That’s enough. You need to leave,” Venutti insisted, sitting back down, “I’m done.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Jess replied, after a long moment just starring at Venutti. _Really?_

The four agents filed toward the door.

“You didn’t break him, but you sure scathed him,” Barnes said in a low tone.

“He wasn’t repulsed,” Jess replied, “He was scared. He knows Gilman.”

* * *

The next task for the team now that they had established that there was a connection between Gilman and Venutti was to figure out what that connection was exactly. Aside from breaks for lunch and dinner as well as multiple coffee breaks, the team spent the rest of the morning and all afternoon and then all evening in their hotel room, chasing down everything that could be found about Venutti and regoing over all of Gilman’s fake IDs.

Kateri felt somewhat useless as the day dragged on. Most of the day’s work was proving to be computer work, for which she was no help whatsoever. She could manage her own laptop just fine, but the wonders that Hana especially did were beyond her. Chasing down leads on foot, she could do if something came up, but her contacts were useless for this type of case.

“Unless he’s got mob or gang connections we don’t know about,” Kateri had quipped to her partner before lunch, “I’m not going to be a lot of help except as a second pair of eyes.” She had promptly appointed herself as food and coffee fetcher just for something to do.

By evening, copious amounts of work had been done, and there was not a lot to show for it.

“I time travelled Venutti all the way back to East Buffalo High School,” declared Hana, shortly after Kateri had returned from the latest run for coffee about two hours after dinner. _I feel like I’m back in college. Caffeine and sugar._ Jess was making himself another cup of disgustingly sweet tea. _My teeth are going to rot just looking at that stuff!_

“There is no intersection with Gilman,” Hana continued, summarizing her research from the day, “No work history. No clubs. No church.”

“Great. Back to square #1,” said Kateri from one of the two small beds on which she had been resting until someone needed her to do something.

“How is anyone fooled by these? These guys don’t even look related to Gilman?” Kenny posed, his expression and tone full of puzzlement. The pictures of Gillman’s fake IDs were covering his screen.

Kateri got up from the bed, nearly running into the boss who had finished making his tea, and went to the table to look over Kenny’s shoulder. He was right. None of the men in the actual ID photos looked related to Gilman in any way, shape, or form by any stretch of one’s over-active imagination. Face shape, facial hair, eye color, hair color, hair style, age … _or even ethnicity for crying out loud_ , they all varied widely from person to person and were in no way identical to Gilman’s. Even the rare similarities to Gillman were stretching it.

“People like to be nice. They don’t like to ask about picture on IDs,” explained Hana, though Kenny didn’t look convinced.

“Maybe…,” Kateri drawled with a grimace, “but still… These differences go so far beyond people being polite over the fact that DMV is perennially unable to take a half-decent photograph.”

Kenny snorted a laugh, but before anyone could say anything else about the monstrosities that were DMV photographs, the sound of a bird’s screech cut through the room. Kateri flinched in surprise, and Barnes, who had been sitting on the other bed, looked up from her laptop with a “What the h*** was that?”

“Tali sent me a video of her feeding a falcon at her grandparent’s farm,” Jess explained.

“Let me see?” Asked Barnes.

The phone was handed over to make the rounds. Barnes’ answer was a very motherly one. Hana’s reply was typical Hana, “That thing looks like it’s going to rip her face off. If you want to get her a pet bird, you should try a parakeet.”

“It’s not a pet. It’s a wild animal. Ran into a high rise about 3 weeks ago. We’re going to release it once it’s healthy.”

 _Ah, it’s that bird._ Kateri had heard a story or two about that bird from Clinton a week or two before.

“Well, on that note,” said Kenny, closing his laptop once he and Kateri had seen the picture and grabbing his jacket, “I’m going to make a run for some hot wings. Figure they got be good here, you know, Buffalo.”

The look on Clinton’s face went from fond, when Jess had been talking about Tali and falconry, to amusement at Kenny’s statement.

“I just fed you like two hours ago!” Squawked Kateri, who had just sat back down on the far bed.

_How are you still hungry?_

Kenny spun on one heel, “I’m a growing boy,” he teased with a smile, “Any takers?”

Barnes shook her head, but Kateri climbed back to her feet, grabbing her own jacket, “I’ll come with. Not,” she added as Kenny’s grin widened into a smirk, “for the food. Just for the fresh air.”

* * *

Kateri would have had no idea where to start looking for hot wings beside a fast food pizza place, and she would not have imagined that that was what he was looking for. Kenny, however, seemed to know where to go, so she was content to sit back and let him drive.

Kenny found some place that sold good hot wings not too far from the hotel, and after he had bought what he wanted, they sat in the back of the jeep, the trunk up, while he ate.

“So,” Kenny asked, once he had started into his evening snack, “How are you, Kat? You seem better than the other day?”

Kateri, who was sitting with her back against the side of the Jeep, left leg hanging off the back, shifted positions, while she thought about the answer. _Somethin’ pokin’ me_. “You mean after me being a bitch on Sunday?”

“You said it, not me,” replied Kenny around a mouthful of chicken.

Kateri chuckled, “Yea, I did. … I’m better. Hana’s call woke me up from the first hour of sleep that I had since Friday night, and I was not feeling well either…”

“And that would make any of us grumpy,” Kenny finished for her, patting her knee with the back of one hand, “You get borrowed again? You’re not the type to stay up all night without a good reason.”

“Yeaa, I got borrowed again,” she growled, “It didn’t go well.” _Not in the slightest_.

Kenny paused for a second, finishing demolishing a chicken wing while he picked his next words carefully. All of her other teammates knew something or other about the work she did for her old unit, knew the restrictions she was under when it came to talking about that work, and had gotten quite good at asking the right questions in the right way.

“Didn’t go well as in whatever you were doing was unsuccessful, someone got hurt, or both?”

“Door number 3,” Kateri replied, “And before you ask, it was me who got hurt. I have already been fussed at and fussed over, and Clinton and I are going to talk to the boss after this case is over about getting these side trips nixed.”

“It’s about time,” Kenny declared, a frown sweeping across his expressive face for a moment, “You’re always off every time you come back.”

“There is a reason I got recruited into Organized Crime. I liked that job once, liked bringing down the bad guys from the inside, but it’s different from the undercover jobs we do on the team. Being someone else long-term, having to fit in with people like that, seeing the things that go down and not being able to react,” she shook her head, “Doing it long term does something to you, takes something from you, something you can’t always get back. and it ain’t pretty, and I needed out.” Kateri’s voice was soft, almost haunted in a way.

“The greater good isn’t always much of a consolation prize,” Kenny agreed.

“Yea, and after a while, being on your own without … backup or reliable backup, not knowing when you get to go home, just gets to be too much, and I needed out.”

“We’ve had hunts go bad before,” said Kenny, finishing his snack and setting the box away, “and one of us get hurt, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. And if you want anyone at your back, it’s Clint. One of the best shots I’ve ever seen.”

 _And a way with words._ Kateri added to herself. _Who needs entertainment when he switches into lawyer mode? He would be a menace to go up against in a court room!_

“True enough. And that makes all the difference,” agreed Kateri, “Do we need to get back?”

Kenny glanced at his watch and then shook his head, “We haven’t been gone that long, and we weren’t making progress anyway. A break’ll be good, and if they need us, they can call. We can go back in a bit, unless you want to go back now?”

“I’m happy to just sit here,” replied Kateri, “Fresh air’s nice now that it’s not quite so cold.” It had warmed up some since they first came to Buffalo.

They sat in companionable silence for several minutes, before Kateri finally spoke again, “So, how are you? After your injury leave and all that?”

Kenny thought for a moment, “I’m better. It’s good to be back. I nearly went stir-crazy multiple times, as you well know. I’m not the stay-home, do-nothin’ type, and you don’t really realize how much you need at least one fully workin’ hand to do stuff with, until you don’t have one.”

Getting out of the way of that fridge had left Kenny with a broken arm and four broken fingers, and the broken fingers had not all been on the same hand. With cracked ribs on top of that, most normal activities had become extremely difficult, extremely painful, or impossible on his own.

“Being laid up at home gets mind-numbingly boring right quickly. It can make the most non-claustrophobic person think the walls are going to close in, and I say that as one who is claustrophobic.”

Kenny snorted, “I think I would have gone insane without you all, bringing me food, doing movie nights, and all that, so thank you.” He paused, “Tali even sent me a card.” His face softened, and Kateri was sure that the card had pride of place somewhere in his apartment. The whole team was very fond of Tali. “How did you learn to cook like that, by the way? I swear, sometimes you threw everything but the kitchen sink in that pot, and whatever you were making still tasted good.”

“We didn’t always have a lot when I was growing up, and not all my foster parents could cook, so you learn what you can make with what’s in the fridge or the cabinets and what you can get at the food bank. Also helps when you’re in college so you don’t end up living on ramen noodles.” Kateri made a face at the mention of ramen noodles. She despised the things.

Kenny laughed. He paused and then asked carefully, “And how are you after December and all that?”

 _Ah, yes, that SNAFU._ Her face twisted, as his question brought back memories.

The December mission, as it might be known to posterity, had been the final hunt before Kenny nearly got himself smushed. That month had been kind of a disaster, two hunts in a row going bad. In the second, Kenny had nearly gotten smushed. In the first, it had been Kateri who had been attacked, drugged, and locked in a situation that was any claustrophobic’s nightmare.

“Well, I have finally stopped having my least favorite nightmare about being buried alive. That’s a plus, and I no longer have to go see the camp counsellor. That’s another a plus.”

“Progress,” Kenny agreed. Between his injuries and her insomnia after that SNAFU of a mission, they had spent multiple long nights up watching movies to keep the demons at bay.

“And the others have stopped looking at me funny every time we have a small building or something to visit, clear, etc., and I am no longer required to be attached to somebody’s hip, or so it felt.” Kateri paused, thunked her head back against the car wall, “I hate feeling like the weak link just because of this stupid phobia.”

“I feel that,” replied Kenny, having had some of the same struggles before because of his anger management issues, “And it’s not a stupid phobia, by the way. I’d probably be claustrophobic, too, if I had gone through what happened to you that day as a kid. It’s not your fault, and it doesn’t make you weak or the weak link of the team. In one way or the other, we all have our struggles.”

Kateri gave a small, wry smile, “I know that intellectually…”

“You just have to keep telling yourself it. I know.”

Silence drifted over them, and Kateri was happy just to enjoy the peace and quiet for a few more minutes before they had to return to the craziness of the case. Her friendship with Kenny had been slow to develop over the last three years, but they had become much closer over the last several months. Some things it was just easier to talk to Kenny about, since he faced some of the same struggles, though not for the same reasons.

Finally, Kenny glanced at his watch again, “We probably should start heading back now.”


	6. Friday: Day 6

By dawn, after another deep dive on Venutti, deeper than the first one that Hana had done, the team finally had the missing link between Venutti and Gilman: they were brothers. That discovery started filling in the gaps and answering the mysteries both from the box of treasures that Jess had taken from the Gilman residence and from the conversation with Venutti the previous day.

Kateri knew too well that one could not pick the relatives they got allotted with, but she could not help but feel somewhat disgusted with Venutti. _I understand the urge to protect your siblings, but this is just going too far. He knows what Gilman did. How can he keep protecting him?_ After what Gilman had done, if she had been in Venutti’s position, she would have given him up in a heartbeat. _No way I’m protecting a disgusting piece of meat like him_.

Jess, Barnes, and Clinton left early to go confront Venutti and hopefully get some info out of him. Kateri was not needed, so she stayed behind with Hana and Kenny. The three went to a diner to get some breakfast and get a start on the day’s work.

Kateri got a text an hour after her partner left, a few minutes after she had finished a plate of ham and eggs:

Venutti being taken in for questioning.  
Pick you up on the way to the station?

Kateri texted back an affirmative, saying aloud, “Apparently, Venutti didn’t trying stonewalling them again, or Jess got him to break with that picture. They’re taking him in for questioning. Clinton’s going to pick me up.”

“The boss can be quite persuasive,” Kenny put in around a mouthful of toast, which earned him a swat on the arm from Hana.

“Yes, he can,” Kateri agreed, “I’m going to the washroom. Get me some more coffee, would’ya?”

Ten minutes later, Kateri was perched on the edge of a retaining wall around a flower bed in front of the diner when her partner pulled up. She handed him a fresh cup of coffee as she climbed inside the car.

“Any particular reason I’m wanted? Or just for my presence in general?” Kateri asked once they were on their way toward the police station.

“Just in general,” Clinton replied and then added dryly, “Though you do have some experience with dysfunctional relations.”

The inside of the police station was pleasantly cool, and the enclosed space of the cell/meeting room where Venutti had been placed was just big enough to not trigger Kateri’s claustrophobia, at least not immediately, though Clinton whispered to her before they went in that it was fine for her to step out if she ever needed to. Venutti was as physicaly well-put together (dressed) as the previous day, but after two seconds of looking at him, Kateri could see the difference in his body language. Between whatever the others had said and the picture, he was _broken’s not quite the right word, but …_

“I swear to God, I’m not trying to protect him. I know what he did to his family,” was one of the first things out of Venutti’s mouth after the questioning started.

Kateri, who had taken up a position holding up the back wall a couple feet away from Jess, raised an incredulous eyebrow. _Then what exactly would you call what you were doing yesterday?_

“Did he threaten you?” Asked Barnes.

“No, but I didn’t know what he was going to do,” Venutti replied. As shaken up as he seemed, he still was not being overly helpful. _Little brother of big brother, who’s now turned nasty, but took care of him once upon a time, protected him._

“Then why did he contact you?” Clinton replied. Apparently, he and Barnes two had decided to tag team.

“He wants to know where our mother is,” Venutti looked down, his voice softer, fingers rubbing together nervously.

Kateri grimaced. She already gotten a sense that Venutti was going to be trouble—he had all the signs of what she liked to call a little brother complex—but add in the mother … _and things get twice as complicated_.

“What’s he want with your mother?” Clinton asked.

_Nothin’ good, I’d expect. Mother ran away, saved baby brother, but left big brother. Big brother suffers at hands of dad because of it. That wound festers for decades, and now Gilman wants payback. That’s the most likely option_.

“He didn’t say,” Venutti replied, “but I know he wants to hurt her.”

“Because she left him behind, abandoned him to your father’s tender care?” Kateri asked, pushing away from the wall.

“It wasn’t her fault. Our father hurt her. That’s why she ran away.” Venutti tried to argue, to defend his mother.

“Without your brother??” Barnes inserted, her face somewhat incredulous.

“She couldn’t take him. I was 5. He was 14,”— _chose not to take him. Plenty of ways to even get a 14-year old away. School, parks, libraries, etc. Pick a good excuse, and then beat it_ —"He was afraid to leave our old man. He stayed. And the worst part for Tommy was that she had to hide from our old man,”— _Did she try calling the cops? A restraining order? Any other options before hightailing it?_ —“She changed her name, her Social Security Number. She had to, though.”

“Did she or you try to contact Tommy?” Clinton asked.

“When he turned 18,” Venutti replied, “she called him. He blamed her for all the family”— _why am I not surprised? Abused kid, mother abandons him to his fate. Those feelings fester for years and kablooey_ — “he spewed all this hate at her. She was afraid. She made me promise to keep trying, to reach out to him. I sent cards for his birthday. They always came back undelivered. There was nothing until two days ago when he showed up at my house. Our parents’ divorce, it just broke him.”

“What did you tell Tommy about your mother?” Jess finally spoke.

“I told him the truth,” Venutti seemed almost tired now after the previous rush of words, “She’s dead from a brain tumor two months ago,” — _that could be fortunate or really, really bad_ —“He didn’t want to believe me.”

“He thought you were protecting her?” Jess confirmed.

“Yea,” Venutti nodded, “I told him she’s buried at Saint Veronica’s outside Rochester with my step-father. You can go look.”

“He’ll go to the cemetery and see you’re telling the truth,” added Clinton.

_And heaven help anyone who gets in his way!_ Kateri went a shade paler.

“There’s no headstone for her. I haven’t had a chance to get one. Haven’t even had a chance to empty out her house.”

_Not good, not good. So not good_.

Now Venutti was getting uneasy, visibly scared, “You have to understand: Tommy’s going to come back at me. Okay. I know it.”

“Any way of contacting him?” Barnes asked, her blank face on.

“No! He called me once,” Venutti replied, “but there was an unknown caller ID.” He buried his face in his hands.

Clinton straightened, glancing back at Jess and Kateri, “We can find that number.”

“What are you going to do when you find him?” Venutti asked, sensing that the meeting was almost at an end.

“That’s up to him,” replied Jess, pushing away from the wall.

“You’ve got to promise me you’re not going to hurt him,” Venutti half-begged.

Having moved toward the door, Kateri rolled her eyes and grimaced, allowing herself those emotions as she was hidden from Venutti’s sight by her partner’s body. _Little brother complex, again_.

“Okay. Who he is, what he’s done,” Venutti continued, “… he wasn’t always like that.”

* * *

“What are you thinking, Kat?” Jess asked, once the four agents had left the station and were back at their cars. Clinton had stepped a little way away, though still within hearing, to update Hana and Kenny and get them started on tracking the number from Venutti’s phone.

_We all have our own talents in this line of work. I guess mine is organized crime and dysfunctional families._

“Well,” Kateri drawled after a moment’s thought—she was thinking a whole lot of things. The question was how to put them into words that still made sense to someone besides her. “I’m thinking that Venutti is big trouble in a lot of ways, and that the mother being dead could be helpful or a very big problem.”

“Okay,” Jess nodded, “Start with Venutti.”

“Venutti has what I like to call a little-brother complex. I’ve seen it a lot before in the foster system and on the street. Big kid protects little kid from some sort of danger, whether that’s an abusive parent, school bully, etc. The little kid feels indebted, even if the big kid does something bad much later. There’s a disincentive to do something that could harm your protector. The instinct is somewhat understandable, but you have to know where to draw the line.”

“I can see that,” Barnes replied, nodding, “Venutti has already been trying to protect him. His words a few minutes ago, and just stonewalling us yesterday.”

“What about the mother?” Jess prompted.

“His insistence about his mother had no other choice in what she did, no choice but to leave Gilman behind … I think Venutti’s constructing a narrative around that time in his life to pacify his own feelings of guilt. He was five. How much can he really remember? And even with his mother feeling guilty, how much would she really have been likely to talk the circumstances of the flight? Talk about her precious baby she had to leave behind, sure, but the flight itself, I doubt it.”

Barnes made a face that was probably one of agreement.

_I haven’t talked this much in a very long time_.

Kateri took a breath and continued, “Hearing all that, I’m not that surprised Gilman’s got a complex. His sense of family, family life is skewed. His mother, probably one of his only sources of some sort of protection from dear old dad, abandoned him. His bitterness, hatred, sense of betrayal just festers and festers. He probably wanted to take that out on her, but now with her dead, that outlet is gone. That could mean he just finds another outlet, but I’m not so sure that Gilman will come after Venutti.”

“Why?” Jess asked, “I’m not saying you’re wrong.”

“Gilman always tried to protect his little brother, and since he does have a screw less, there might be a disconnect in his mind between the brother of then and the brother of now. I can see the disconnect with the picture from the house versus the cards. Does Gilman still see his brother as the little kid who needs the protecting or as an accomplice in this huge family drama? How he sees Venutti now could determine what risk little brother is in.”

And with that, Kateri finished and was happily silent, having said about as much in the last few minutes than she probably had since the case began. _Or maybe not, but it sounds funny to say._

* * *

Gilman did go to the cemetery to check for his mother’s grave, and as Kateri had feared, the whole thing went bad. The team got the news early in the afternoon that there was now a dead worker who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Kateri was standing starring at the damaged gravestone, fingers drumming on her chin, when her partner returned from talking to witnesses.

“Witnesses say Gilman got into an altercation with the custodian when he couldn’t find his mother’s grave, stole a pickaxe, and went kinetic on her husband’s headstone,” Clinton said.

“Of course,” Jess replied, getting to his feet after having crouched down to look at the poor custodian who now had a pickaxe buried in his chest. _Ugh, not a nice way to go_. “The man he blames for taking his mommy away from him.”

“Just imagine what he would have done to his mother,” added Barnes, tone horrified.

“Considering Gilman’s temper, I’d rather not,” said Kateri. _I had a bad feeling about this as soon as Venutti mentioned mentioning the grave_.

“And might still want to do,” Jess said contemplatively, moving around to get a better look at the headstone or rather _what’s left of it…_ “He has no proof that she’s dead. I’m sure he wants to believe she’s alive so he can punish her.” _Talk about mommy issues_.

Jess was silent for a moment, just staring at the gravestone. Clinton, Barnes, and Kateri all exchanged looks. _What are you plotting, boss?_

“So,” Jess finally concluded, “let’s give him his wish.”

* * *

Giving Gilman his wish meant driving right back to Buffalo, which was over an hour drive. The more and more driving they did, the less daylight there was to work with, but what was was, as Kateri liked to say.

The team had had nothing to charge Venutti for, so he had been released and was back at his office when they went looking for him mid-afternoon. By that time, Hana and Kenny had tracked down the blocked number off of his cellphone. _Those two are scarily competent._

“I already told him that she’s dead, and he doesn’t even know where she lived,” Venutti argued, pacing in front of the window behind his desk, when the plan to trick Gilman had been explained to him.

“You’ll give him the address when you call him,” countered Barnes, perched on the edge of his desk, “You’ll say you lied about her being dead to protect her.”

“I already told you I don’t have a contact for him,” Venutti countered right back.

“We got his number from the call he made to you,” was Hana’s rejoinder. She had found a place to set her laptop on a table-top half-covered with faucet fixtures and pipe thingies. “He’s been turning his phone on and off so we’re not able to track him.” Venutti scoffed, so she quickly added, “but as soon as he turns it back on …”

Venutti was on edge, still pacing back and forth, back and forth in front of the same window, “Why would he believe me???”

“He’s already half-way there,” was Jess’ answer, “He wants to believe it.”

A sudden flash of movement in the corner of her eye made Kateri twitch slightly from where she was holding up a pillar next to Hana’s makeshift desk. She turned slightly but then noticed it was only Kenny approaching to give Jess an earpiece and relaxed.

“I don’t understand why he was so upset with my Mom,” maniac energy had dwindled, and sadness took its place. “I just wish,” Venutti said, sinking into a seat at his desk, “I wish he just would have given her a chance while she was alive. She wasn’t this awful person. I want to show you something.”

Venutti turned to his computer and, after only a few clicks, brought up a video clip from a birthday party. From his speed in accessing it, Kateri surmised he probably watched it a lot for it to be that quickly accessible. Most things on her computer she had to go digging to find.

“Here. This is from last October. She just turned 72.”

The team gathered around Venutti’s desk. In the video, Mrs. Venutti was holding her son’s hand, exclaiming about the beauties of the lit birthday cake on the table in front of her. Venutti told her to make a wish. To that the old lady replied how sorry she was about how things had turned out with Gilman, how he couldn’t be there with them.

“She never really got over leaving Tommy behind,” explained Venutti.

Kateri was torn between some measure of sympathy and her belief that the woman could have tried harder to rescue her elder son.

Beeping equipment kept Venutti from saying anything more.

“His phone’s back on!” Exclaimed Hana.

Kenny handed the phone back to Venutti, who did not take it but just starred at for a long moment, until Jess prompted him. Then Venutti finally took the phone and called his brother, stepping away from the others for a semblance of privacy, even though with the earpieces the FBI agents could hear every word that was said on the call.

“Hey, Tommy.”

“You lied to me, Mikey,” replied Gilman, car noises in the background, “There’s no grave.”

“I’m sorry, Tommy. I didn’t mean to lie. I just … you were so mad at Mom.” Venutti was not a good liar, but he was warming up and getting into his spiel.

“Yea, well, wouldn’t you be? She left me behind. I was just a kid,” Gilman’s tone was angry. _Though you, according to Venutti, chose to stay with your old man._ “Now, where is she, Mikey?”

Venutti did not reply for a moment, struggling with his emotions, and Gilman yelled, impatiently, angrily, “Where is she, Mikey?”

Once the address had been given, Gilman continued, “Alright, listen. I’m going to find it, but you stay away. You understand me?”

_Interesting. Is Gilman trying to protect his brother?_ Kateri mused.

Then things went sideways in an instant. Venutti’s resolve broke, and he blurted out, “Tommy, listen to me. She’s dead, okay? Don’t go there. Don’t go. It’s a trap. Mom’s dead, Tommy. Don’t go.” Kenny wrestled the phone away, but by then Gilman had ended the call.

“He’s my brother,” was Venutti’s only defense for probably blowing the whole op, “He protected me from my father. He took the beatings that were meant for me. I can’t do that to him. Do you understand? I’m sorry.”

_He also brutally murdered your own niece and nephew_ , Kateri wanted to fling back in his face but bit her tongue and kept silent. She understood the urge to protect a sibling who had protected you— _I’ve had a few of those myself_ —but only so far.

“Gillman turned his phone off,” said Hana. Her words sounded like a death knell to the hunt.

“He’ll be in the wind. Nothing is holding him here anymore,” added Barnes.

Jess was undaunted, “Except that he wants his mom to be alive.” Turning away from Barnes, he said to Kenny, “We’re taking that birthday video.”

* * *

Back to the hotel it was, so Kenny could get to work on the birthday video and splicing out of it what he needed: Mrs. Venutti’s voice and those fateful words, “Tommy, my Tommy. So sorry.” Unfortunately, splicing/cutting/video editing was not fast work, even for Kenny, and time was not on the team’s side.

“Gillman’s turning his phone on and off every hour or so,” said Hana, when they had been back in the hotel room at least an hour. Kateri hadn’t bothered to look at her watch for a while. Watching the time and seeing daylight fade was only making her uneasy. “He’s heading west.”

“We need to be ready as soon as he pings a tower,” Jess spoke, looking over Kenny’s shoulder.

“You hear that?” Hana asked Kenny, voice light and full of teasing and good fun, “Cut faster.”

Kenny rolled his eyes fondly and gave her a thumbs up, his attention still on his headphone and his laptop.

“We just got the CC TV footage from outside the cemetery,” added Barnes.

Kateri got up from where she had been sitting on the floor out of the way, cleaning her Glock, and went over to look over her partner’s shoulder. Gillman and his truck were clearly visible in the footage, but the angle was terrible, so there was no chance of capturing the license plate.

“I still can’t believe Venutti boned us like that,” Kenny said, glancing over for a second at the footage.

Kateri snorted, “I can. Blood is thicker, and his complex is stronger than his human decency.”

“So is guilt,” Jess added, stepping away from the table and pulling out his cellphone, “He got the good life, while the brother he loved got to be a punching bag for their dad.” He made a quick call.

_Who’s he calling?_ Kateri wondered. _If we’re trying to get this done today, they’d better be close._

It took Kenny about another hour to finish, and when Gilman turned his phone back on a half-hour after that, the team was ready. He seemed genuinely shaken to her his mother’s voice, shaken not angry, and Kateri wondered if the ruse would actually work.

* * *

The team had to be ready for Gilman whether he took the bait or not, so they got on the road, three to a car. Kenny was with Barnes and Jess, while Kateri, as always, was with Clinton with Hana tagging along. They had not been on the road that long, just barely long enough to get out of the city and into the woods, when …

Hana suddenly exclaimed, “He pinged a tower!! He’s heading east. He turned around.”

Linked in by coms, Barnes noted, “He took the bait.” Her voice was relieved.

Gilman had turned around, and he was heading for the address of his mother’s old place that Venutti had given him. East Eden was half-an-hour south of Buffalo, but even making tracks, by the time the team had gathered SWAT support, the sun had already long set when they reached her place, a 30-acre plot with only the one house. The circumstances were not ideal by a long shot for catching a ruthless murderer with no compunctions, but the team had faced worse.

The SWAT support—actually an HRT team, Kateri noted with pleasure—was already waiting for them. Jess went over to speak with them, while the others gathered their guns and the rest of their supplies. The weight of her AR in her was familiar as Clinton handed it to her and then pulled out his own sniper rifle. They checked over each other’s gear quickly as was their habit, making sure their vests were positioned correctly and fully tightened.

Unsure where she would be on the field since Clinton was apparently on sniper support, Kateri said quietly, “Be safe.”

Clinton smiled at her, “You, too, kid.”

Jess slammed his car door shut, having just finished kitting up himself, and then looked around until he caught sight of Kateri and motioned for her to come over. He put his hands on her shoulders and intentionally lowered his voice.

“I want you to stay with Clinton,” Jess said.

Kateri’s face went slightly puzzled. She had assumed she would probably be on the house team. “He’s on sniper support… Won’t you need me with the others?”

Jess shook his head, and then the reason for his lowered voice became apparent, “I saw the house plans for the Venutti place. You don’t want to be in there, especially in the dark.”

“Bosssss…” From her tone, Kateri was grateful and embarrassed both. She hated being seen as the weak link of the team.

“I’d want you outside anyway,” Jess cut her off gently, “30 acres in the dark. Gilman could be anywhere. Clint and his spotter will be focused on the house. I need you to watch their backs.”

Mollified, Kateri nodded and stepped back, just in time for another female agent— _who on earth is she? Is she the one Jess called earlier_ —to approach. Jess spoke with her for a second, and then it was time to go.

Most of the large HRT team that had been sent was responsible for clearing the property, while the rest of the HRT operators went with the team to deal with the house. Clint and his spotter took up their position almost straight in front of the main entrance but some distance back into the trees. Crossing herself quickly, Kateri settled into a position facing the opposite direction. Jess, Barnes, Kenny, Hana, and the other female agent were positioned around the house to one side or the other of Clinton and Kateri.

Waiting for the action she knew was almost certainly to come, Kateri always found to be hard. Patience she had a plenty, but raids were always dangerous, and she was always glad for them to be finished. She could hear bits and pieces of quiet updates across the comms, and she tried to build a picture in her mind of where her teammates were and what they were doing, even while her focus was on the woods. Gilman’s goal would be the house, but he had to get from Point A to Point B first, and when the hunt was almost done was NOT the time to underestimate him.

Finally, someone caught sight of movement along the back of the house, and parts of the team started to move in.

_Now it begins_. _One way or the other this’ll be over soon._

A couple of minutes passed, and then suddenly the sounds of a physical struggle came across the comms, and Kateri’s heart leapt into her throat.

A groan or cry of pain across the comms: Jess.

“Jess?” Questioned Clinton, hoping for a response. There was none.

Kateri swore internally, forcing herself to focus on the woods, not on the comms. There had been no words, so they did not know what had really happened inside the house. It could be Gillman, but it could not be. It was dark. Could they really know the movement had been Gilman? _Could be Venutti for all we know. He’s certainly proved himself to be trouble_.

Still no response, and more agents were converging on the house. _Please be alright, boss!_

Kateri began to pray silently, her fingers twitching to reach for the cross under her shirt.

_Je vous salue, Marie, **[1]**  
pleine de grâce:  
le Seigneur est avec vous;  
vous êtes bénie entre toutes les femmes,  
et Jésus, le fruit de vos entrailles, est béni.  
Sainte Marie, Mère de Dieu,  
priez pour nous, pauvres pécheurs,  
maintenant et à l'heure de notre mort._

There were more sounds of a struggle across the comms.

A voice shouting that sounded like Venutti.

And then Gillman’s voice came clearly across the comms, too. “Get away,” it sounded like he was saying.

Jess was possibly hurt, who knew how bad. Venutti was down there, and Gillman.

_Does he have any backup?_ Kateri feared not.

Finally, more voices came over the comm: Jess negotiating or trying to with Gillman. Then a stressed, shouted order for “Everyone, hold positions.”

A few second of tense silence, and then Jess’ voice again, “Come on, Tommy. Look at you. Your brother, he doesn’t want you to get hurt.”

The first position Clinton had taken up had no sight-line into the basement. Once everyone realized that Jess had somehow ended up in the basement, Clinton had moved positions to one of the only, if not the only, tiny window that gave any kind of coverage.

Still it wasn’t enough. _Not yet, at least_.

“I’ve got no shot on the target. Hear me, brother?” Clinton said quietly over the comms.

Even when in the line of fire, Jess knew how to move a target into prime position for Clinton. That was one problem that could be fixed, as long as Jess didn’t get shot first.

With Gillman inside, everything focused on the house, and Kateri finally allowed another small sliver of her attention to turn away from the woods, though she kept scanning periodically and kept her ears pealed for any noises that her comm did not block out.

Jess’s voice came again. More negotiating, and then a sign for Clinton: “… It’s as clear to me as the bottles on that shelf.”

“Got it,” Kateri’s partner said, knowing Jess would hear.

A few moments later, Jess spoke another sign, which he was fitting seamlessly into his negotiating, “Don’t sell yourself short.”

“He wants the shorty,” Clinton told Barnes, who usually carried it. _The shotgun_ , Kateri’s mind filled in.

A few more seconds, and the time came for action.

“Sending it now.”

Only years of training came Kateri from physical jumping when Clinton let loose a burst on the glass bottles in the basement, which Jess had indicated, though she did flinch. The noise was loud. Very loud.

A few more seconds. The sound of a shotgun blast, and then someone crying out.

A few more seconds.

“Fugitive down. We need a medic in here,” Jess’s voice.

Kateri finally allowed herself to relax.

_It’s over_. _Time to pack up, and go home_.

Jess might be hurt from the whatever altercation he had been in, but she could tell from his voice that it was not that bad.

_We’re all in one piece_.

* * *

[1] http://www.marysrosaries.com/French_prayers.html.


End file.
